move against Rutherford by four of the seven Watch Tower Society directors. At issue were new by-laws that had been passed in January by both the Pittsburgh convention and the board of directors, stating that the president would be the executive officer and general manager of the Watch Tower Society, giving him full charge of its affairs worldwide. Opinions on the need for the by-laws were sharply divided. Rutherford maintained that Russell, as president, had always acted as the society's manager, and that the January 6 vote by shareholders to approve the by-laws proved they wanted this process to continue under his successor. He claimed it was a matter of efficiency and said the work of the Watch Tower Society "peculiarly requires the direction of one mind". Bible Student Francis McGee, a lawyer and an assistant to the New Jersey Attorney-General, responded: "This is then the crux of the matter. He says he is that one mind." By June, four board members—Robert H. Hirsh, Alfred I. Ritchie, Isaac F. Hoskins and James D. Wright—had decided they had erred in endorsing Rutherford's powers of management. They claimed Rutherford had become autocratic, refusing to open the Watch Tower Society's books for scrutiny and denying Johnson a fair hearing over his actions in London. At a board meeting on June 20, Hirsh presented a resolution to rescind the new by-laws and reclaim the powers of management from the president, but a vote was deferred for a month after strenuous objections by Rutherford. A week later, four of the directors requested an immediate board meeting to seek information on the society's finances. Rutherford refused the meeting, later claiming he had by then detected a conspiracy between Johnson and the four directors with the aim of seizing control of the society, as he believed Johnson had attempted in Britain. Within weeks, Rutherford gained a legal opinion from a Philadelphia corporation lawyer that a clause of the Watch Tower Society charter stipulating that its directors were elected for life was contrary to Pennsylvania law, and that all directors were required by law to be re-elected annually. The legal opinion stated that because the January 6 shareholders' meeting had elected only three men to office—Rutherford, Secretary-Treasurer Van Amburgh and Vice-President Andrew N. Pierson—the remaining four board members, who had joined as early as 1904 and had not faced re-election, had no legal status as directors of the